My question is specific to the Skirmish Vassal module, but I wanted to spam the whole community with the hopes that someone might have an answer.

There have been several Deck builders created and floating around the internet, and it also seems like the use of Vassal has increased (great way to play when you can't play someone in person). Having to setup a list once in a deck building site, then again in Vassal is slightly annoying and if nothing else time consuming. I was really hoping that someone might have some insight into how the save file is built or at the very least how to read it.

I've taken a stab at it a few times, and have come to the conclusion that it is delimited, however most of the fields are blank for the purposes of saving a deck. Is there a guide or explanation hiding somewhere? Is there a function or something in Vassal that allows you to load a text file and perform actions from it (auto build the list). Any insight would be appreciated greatly.

I believe we're waiting for @thereisnotry to work up some kind of import.

It's talked about more here: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/259560-skirmish-interchange-format/

@kingargyle made something that's supposed to go between Tabletop Admiral and Vassal. I've implemented the JSON export on Tabletop Admiral.

One of them can correct me or update better, I'm sure.

gotcha, i had briefly talked with thereisnotry, but it sounds like the three of you are much closer than my excel attempt was haha.

It would be great if you could get into the loop the guy who made Startactics IA. I wish that Startactics IA could create a list and produce a link to display that on Tabletop Admiral or import that directly into Vassal providing the link. Also Vassal could export the list as a link for Tabletop Admiral also importable by Startactics IA or other Vassal. I saw you guys made up a JSON spec, sort of a monster. All you needed (and actually Tabletop Admiral had already) was a way to encode a list into an URL. That URL could also be used everywhere for import/export eventually printed as a QR code to quickly share the list to someone in a tournment or in a friendly event.

12 hours ago, werdnaegni said:

I believe we're waiting for @thereisnotry to work up some kind of import.

It's talked about more here: https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/259560-skirmish-interchange-format/

@kingargyle made something that's supposed to go between Tabletop Admiral and Vassal. I've implemented the JSON export on Tabletop Admiral.

One of them can correct me or update better, I'm sure.

Yes, I'm terribly sorry that it's taking me so long to get onto this! I've been working on a pretty significant update to improve the Power Token functionality, and I was stumped for quite a while, but I think I've got it sorted out now.

I'll post here when I do get on the JSON project. And yes, I will! Promise! I absolutely love the idea of being able to import and export save files with Vassal and the various squad-building sites/programs out there. As Qui Gon Jinn said, "[Making this happen is] the will of the Force, I have no doubt of that."

Thanks @thereisnotry , totally wasn't aware there was work underway. Thanks for the work you do on that module!

If anyone comes across information about the Vassal save file format, or tools to manipulate them, let me know. I would very much like to have some way of merging save files of the campaign module.

(Due to past mistakes, Vassal's built-in component update feature does not work with the IA Campaign module, probably due to more than one object having the same name, or missing a name.)

So, just since I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable about programming as what seems like most of the IA community, I'm going to ask a question.

Are you basically looking for a way for there to be, say, a button on Tabletopadmiral or ia-armies that would be "save as vassal list" or something. Then if you hit it, it would save a team just like my save files on vassal? Is that truly possible? Because that sounds awesome!

6 minutes ago, Masterchiefspiff said:

So, just since I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable about programming as what seems like most of the IA community, I'm going to ask a question.

Are you basically looking for a way for there to be, say, a button on Tabletopadmiral or ia-armies that would be "save as vassal list" or something. Then if you hit it, it would save a team just like my save files on vassal? Is that truly possible? Because that sounds awesome!

Kind of. I think there will be one more step in the process.

It'll be export as JSON from TTA, then upload to the interchange site to be downloaded as Vassal format.

But essentially, yeah.

43 minutes ago, werdnaegni said:

Kind of. I think there will be one more step in the process.

It'll be export as JSON from TTA, then upload to the interchange site to be downloaded as Vassal format.

But essentially, yeah.

Cool. Either way, about ten minutes easier than putting the list back together in vassal

19 hours ago, Masterchiefspiff said:

Cool. Either way, about ten minutes easier than putting the list back together in vassal

Yeah, I've tried to make the squad-building process on Vassal as intuitive as possible, but still, there's no replacement for simply importing a pre-saved file!

12 hours ago, thereisnotry said:

I've tried to make the squad-building process on Vassal as intuitive as possible

I think you've done a solid job without building one of this list building sites right in vassal haha!

Guys let me know if you run into any issues. Unfortunately, work has picked up and I'm totally involved with working with the #SaveTheCrew organization right now on some mobile apps, so my time is limited.