WotR Formation Movement Calculator - Update … Progress Still Being Made [Part 2/11]

Over the last two weeks I've been able to make some more progress with the calculator. I'm affectionately calling it the WFMC, probably due to the fact that my "real work" has an acronym for EVERYTHING (lol).

WHERE WE LEFT OFF AT THE LAST POST

Here is a screenshot of WFMC as it existed last week on the 23rd of February 2015. It has been another week and a half and I've had about 1 hour an evening to continue to try to make more headway - so I am rather pleased with the progress that has occurred considering return on time invested.

As you can see, we had a selector for the list of 10 Factions within WotR and then the dependent list of units within the selected Faction. We also had a generic cube that was rendered in OpenGL that responded to rotating and translation. The three sliders on the left controlled the movement of the cube "formation"; the top one handled rotation from -180deg to +180deg, the middle one handled translation in the horizontal direction, and the top one handled translation in the vertical direction. It wasn't calculating any expended move distances yet and in fact it had a hard-coded remaining move value that didn't adjust. Finally, all the controls on the dialog are enabled all the time and there is no implied workflow to using the calculator.

WHAT ADDITIONAL PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE

Here is a screenshot of how it currently looks. I realize that it is getting a little crowded with things on the GUI - but my first intention is to get it working first and sexy second.

First thing you should notice is that everything is now greyed out. This forces the workflow from top to bottom. Meaning that the user will need to first select a Faction, which then in turn enables the Desired Unit Combo Box.

Once a Unit is selected from the desired Faction - it then effectively opens up the remaining implemented controls. It populates the Unit's Type (Infantry vs Cavalry) and the Unit's Move value and the Number of companies in the formation. 

Right now, I have a static 6 number of companies per unit and haven't updated the data within the database to have the "proper" maximum number of companies allowed in the formation. As you can see in the OpenGL View, I've also changed the generic box into a properly scaled Formation (the companies are each 110 x 60) comprised of the current number of specified companies in the formation (in this case again 6). Notice that the reference coordinates also are positioned in effect similar to the formation's "front", so that visually it is easier to identify the effect of the rotation on the formation. Also look at the Expended and Remaining Move Values. That is associated with the Unit's Move Value that is returned from the selected Unit and additionally with the movement modifiers that can adjust the Unit's Move Value either up or down. I originally had 4 movement modifier checkboxes: 1) At the Double!, 2) Heroic Move, 3) Enemy Upon Us, and 4) Difficult Terrain. I've added placeholder checkboxes for effectively including a Hornblower (or Drummer as appropriate) and also for taking into consideration special rules that may affect movement of a formation (i.e., Spirit Walk).

As shown above, as you rotate and translate the formation the expended move value is calculated in real time and the remaining move value shows when the maximum value has been exceeded. Obviously for a unit like the Hobbit Militia with a Move Value of 4", without performing an "At the Double!" or a Heroic Move - or including a Hornblower for that matter really limits the effective movement that can be executed.

As of last night it donned on me that the tool may be more intuitively useable if the movement was Vector Based instead of Cartesian Movement Based. In other words, after rotating the formation the second scroll bar would provide "side-to-side" movement relative to the current rotation (i.e., move along the new +/- x'-axis instead of the static original horizontal axis) and the third scroll bar would provide "forward/backward" movement relative to the current rotation (i.e., it would move along the new +/- y'-axis instead of the static original vertical axis). I figure that this will "help" with the translational movement a lot more.

I also thought that not everyone will necessarily want to use the house rule for rotation, so why not allow for an option to turn that off - and effectively provide the functionality for using the "Vanilla WotR Move Limit Rules" where rotation doesn't contribute to the Expended Move Value, only Translation relative to the origination points of the corners of the formation. This will likely be a Phase 3 "nice-to-have" implementation after I get the original set of User Stories implemented and tested.

Likewise, I also assumed that having an alpha (ghosted) formation that shows the original position of the Formation would be useful for providing the reference orientation/displacement; and finally, I put in a placeholder checkbox for showing reference lines so that the calculator can effectively "show" you how to position your formation after movement. Maybe it will be something similar to this:

I think that the next steps for this upcoming week will be to update the database with the "correct" company limits for formations and also provide the capability to reconfigure the formation with the appropriate move costs - I suspect that that will be a big leap forward for functional use-ability of the application.




LINKS TO OTHER PARTS OF THE WFMC PROGRESS SERIES

• WotR Formation Movement Calculator - Work in Progress [Part 1/11]
• WotR Formation Movement Calculator - Update ... Progress still being Made [Part 2/11]
• WotR Formation Movement Calculator - WFMC Continuing to Come Together [Part 3/11]
• WotR Formation Movement Calculator - Formations Look Like REAL Formations and Groundwork for Reconfig Costs Put in Place [Part 4/11]
• WotR Formation Movement Calculator - Load Previous Data & Reconfig Costs/Restrictions [Part 5/11]
• WotR Formation Movement Calculator - Fixed Expended Move Costs Round-to-Round and Added Color to the Reconfiguration Combo Box [Part 6/11]
• WotR Formation Movement Calculator - Movement Modifier Checkboxes Work Properly and Zoom Capability [Part 7/11]
• WotR Formation Movement Calculator - Implementing the Options for Rotation [Part 8/11]
• WotR Formation Movement Calculator - Calculating the Translation Distance for Vanilla WotR Rules of Movement [Part 9a/11]
• WotR Formation Movement Calculator - Calculating the Translation Distance for Vanilla WotR Rules of Movement (Continued) [Part 9b/11]
• TBD [Part 10/11]
• TBD [Part 11/11]

LINKS TO OTHER PARTS OF MOVEMENT TYPES AND LIMITS SERIES

• Movement Types and Limits Series - Translational and Rotational Movement [Part 1/23]

• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Infantry Formations Comprised of 2-3 Companies [Part 2/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Infantry Formations Comprised of 4 Companies [Part 3/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Infantry Formations Comprised of 5 Companies [Part 4/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Infantry Formations Comprised of 6 Companies [Part 5/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Infantry Formations Comprised of 7 Companies [Part 6/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Infantry Formations Comprised of 8 Companies [Part 7/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Infantry Formations Comprised of 9 Companies [Part 8/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Summary of Infantry Formations by Company Size [Part 9/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Infantry Restrictions of Reconfiguration by Formation Name Summary [Part 10/23]

• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Cavalry Formations Comprised of 2-3 Companies [Part 11/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Cavalry Formations Comprised for 4 Companies [Part 12/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Cavalry Formations Comprised of 5 Companies [Part 13/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Cavalry Formations Comprised of 6 Companies [Part 14/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Cavalry Formations Comprised of 7 Companies [Part 15/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Cavalry Formations Comprised of 8 Companies [Part 16/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Movement of Infantry Formations Comprised of 9 Companies [Part 17/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Cavalry Movement Example 1 from Page 33 of WotR Rulebook Analysis [Part 18/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Cavalry Movement Example 2 from Page 33 of WotR Rulebook Analysis [Part 19/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Cavalry Movement Example 3 from Page 33 of WotR Rulebook Analysis [Part 20/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Reconfiguration Summary of Cavalry Formations by Company Size [Part 21/23]
• Movement Types and Limits Series - Cavalry Restrictions of Reconfiguration by Formation Name Summary [Part 22/23]
• Using WFMC to Verify Movement Examples [Part 23/23]