Selecting and Moving Ships
Select: Left-click a ship or object on the battlefield. The selected unit becomes the active ship for commands and tactical displays.
Move: With no asset selected for placement, left-click an empty hex (or an empty portion of a hex if occupied by multiple ships) to move the selected ship there, provided the destination passes the movement/placement rules enforced by the application.
The coordinate/status display identifies the selected ship, its hex, side, movement-point entry, and—when applicable—target and range information.
See Stacking Ships in the Same Hex for detailed instructions.
Stacking Ships in the Same Hex
The VTT permits multiple ships to occupy the same hex. This reflects the scale of the FASA tactical map, where a hex represents a very large volume of space.
When ships are stacked, the VTT separates their images so that each ship remains individually selectable. The images may become crowded when many ships occupy the same hex; zooming in can make individual ships easier to select.
Selecting a Ship in a Stack
To select a particular ship in a stacked hex, click directly on that ship's image. Do not click merely within the hex.
Each ship has an exposed portion that can be clicked, even when several ships are stacked. If necessary, zoom in before selecting the ship.
Right-Clicking a Stacked Ship
Right-click directly on the image of the ship you want to control. The VTT selects that specific ship and opens its Ship Command Menu.
This means that commands such as Rename, Visibility, Movement Points, Rotation, and Delete apply to the ship you actually clicked, rather than automatically applying to the first or lowest-numbered ship in the hex.
Moving a Ship Into a Stack
To move the currently selected ship into a hex that already contains other ships, click an empty portion of that hex. The selected ship joins the existing stack.
If you want to select one of the ships already in that hex instead, click directly on that ship's image rather than on an empty portion of the hex.
Rotating a Ship
Select a rotatable ship and press Q to rotate 60° counterclockwise or E to rotate 60° clockwise. Rotation wraps around after 300°.
Ships whose asset definition does not permit rotation ignore these commands.
Every ship and station that can rotate shows two small red dots at the front (nose) of its image, so you can always tell which way it faces. The dots turn with the ship, sit at the ship's own image rather than the center of the hex (so they stay correct when ships share a hex), and fade along with the ship when it is drawn dimmed. They are not drawn on obstacles, and never on a ship you cannot see.
Drawing a Targeting Line
Hold Shift and left-drag from a targetable ship to another targetable ship. Release the mouse button on the target ship to establish the red targeting line.
Obstacles cannot be targets, and a ship cannot target itself or a ship hidden from it due to cloaking technology or fog of war. If the drag does not end on a valid target, the targeting line is cleared.
Viewing Firing Arcs
Hold F while a ship is selected to display its firing arcs. The first press/release cycle shows the current arc set; releasing F hides the arcs and toggles the next display mode.
The two modes alternate between Forward/Aft and Port/Starboard. The selected ship's facing determines the arc orientation. Arc calculations extend to the application's configured arc depth.
Stations use their station-specific arc display rather than the ordinary ship-sector display.
Zooming and Panning
| Action | Control |
|---|---|
| Zoom in/out | Mouse wheel. The current zoom is constrained to 0.25× through 4×. |
| Pan | Press and drag the middle mouse button. |
| Hover information | Move the pointer over the battlefield; the current hex and range information are updated in the status display on the left side of the battle map. |
Placing Ships and Objects
Choose an asset from the Assets palette. The selected asset is then placed by left-clicking an available hex. While an asset is selected for placement the hex grid turns yellow, a PLACEMENT MODE banner appears on the map, and the Cancel Placement button pulses.
The application prevents placement when the new object's footprint would overlap an existing object. Combat units placed in multiplayer must also have an assigned allegiance before deployment (the administrator assigns each player a side in the Participants dialog); obstacles are restricted to the administrator. A notice explains the problem if you try to select an asset you may not place.
A newly placed ship takes its owner's side.
Visible on Placement
Below Cancel Placement is a Visible on Placement checkbox (off by default; it is not remembered after a page reload). When it is checked, each combat unit you place is made visible to everyone, instead of being visible only to its own side. The ship stays visible to everyone, including sides and players who join later, until you change its visibility with Ship Visibility or change its side.
Ship Outline Colors and Dimmed Ships
Outline Colors
The selected ship is outlined in a color that shows its faction:
| Faction | Selected-ship outline |
|---|---|
| Federation | Blue |
| Klingon | Yellow |
| Romulan | Green |
| Gorn | Orange |
| Orion | Purple (magenta) |
| Merchant and obstacles | White |
A ship that is not selected has a red outline while it has no movement points entered, and no outline once movement points have been entered.
Dimmed Ships
In a room, one of your own ships is drawn dimmed (about half strength) when at least one other side in the room is not allowed to see it. The dimming means “someone might not see this ship,” not “nobody can see it”—the VTT does not know which sides are allied. Open Ship Visibility to see exactly who can see the ship. Other players' ships are never dimmed on your screen.
Ship Command Menu
Right-click a ship to select it and open its contextual command menu. In a room, the menu is offered only for ships you control, and to the administrator for any ship; right-clicking another player's ship does nothing. The menu contains:
- Rename... — see Renaming a Ship.
- Assign Side... — combat units only; see Assigning a Side.
- Visibility... — combat units only; see Ship Visibility.
- Movement Points... — combat units only; see Setting Movement Points.
- Transfer Control... — administrator only; see Transfer Control.
- Control Panel... and Console Panel ▶ — appear only after combat has begun; see Control Panel and Bridge.
- Delete... — see Deleting a Ship.
Obstacles (planets, asteroids and similar objects) offer only Rename... and Delete..., and only the administrator can use them.
Setting Movement Points
Select a ship and press M, or choose Movement Points... from its command menu (or click Set Move Pts in the palette). A Set Move Pts box opens, already showing the ship's current value. Enter a non-negative integer and press Enter or click Set. Cancel, ✕ or Esc leaves the value unchanged.
The value is stored as the ship's allocated movement points. A ship with no value entered is shown as Power: Not Entered in the battlefield information display.
In a room, only the ship's owner or the administrator can change a ship's movement points.
Note: When the VTT is integrated with the Bridge application, the Bridge application will assign movement points to each ship. Changing the movement points using the VTT in such a situation will have unintended consequences. Once integrated, this feature may be rendered unavailable.
Renaming a Ship
Select a ship and press R, or choose Rename... from its command menu. A Rename Ship box opens, already showing the ship's current name selected, so you can simply type a new one. Press Enter or click Rename to confirm. An empty name clears the ship's name.
Cancel, ✕ or Esc leaves the existing name unchanged.
In a room, only the ship's owner or the administrator can rename it.
Assigning a Side
Select a ship and press A, or choose Assign Side... (or click Assign Side in the palette). Choose the side from the list and click OK.
Changing a ship's side resets who can see it to that side alone; use Ship Visibility afterward to share it. In a room, only the ship's owner or the administrator can change a ship's side.
Player Sides
A player's side is separate from a ship's side. In a room the administrator sets each player's side with the drop-down in the Participants dialog. Combat units a player places take that player's side, and a player with no side cannot deploy combat units. Once a player has been given a side, that player can be moved to another side but cannot be returned to “Unassigned.”
The application uses side assignments for participant allegiance and visibility rules.
Allies can see each others' hidden ships, whether hidden by cloaking technology or by the fog of war. This may be desired. If not (e.g., Romulans allied with Orions don't want Orions to pierce the cloaking technology), assign each player to its own side.
Ship Visibility
Select a ship and press V, or choose Visibility.... The visibility dialog shows the ship's owner, who always has visibility, and the additional sides to which the ship may be visible. A side is listed as soon as a ship or a player holds it, even if that player has not placed a ship yet.
You can select individual additional sides. The dialog also provides Apply these settings to all of my ships (or, when appropriate, all ships controlled by the selected owner).
A ship placed with Visible on Placement checked starts out with every side ticked. If you press OK without unticking anything, it stays visible to everyone, including sides that join later. Unticking any side makes it visible only to its own side and the sides you left ticked. Changing a ship's side also ends “visible to everyone.”
See also Visible on Placement, which makes new ships visible to every side from the start, and Dimmed Ships, which marks your own ships that some side cannot see.
Transfer Control
The administrator can hand a combat unit to another player who is currently in the room. Right-click the ship and choose Transfer Control..., pick the new owner from the list, and click OK.
- The ship moves to the new owner's side, and who can see it resets to that side. If the new owner has no side yet, the new owner takes the ship's side instead.
- The previous owner loses control of the ship immediately, including the right-click menu for it.
- Any Bridge page the previous owner had open for the ship stops working the next time it asks the VTT for information. The new owner opens the ship's Control Panel to continue.
- The new owner is saved with the ship when a battle is saved, and returns with it when the battle is loaded.
Undoing a Move
Press U or choose Undo Move to return the most recently moved ship to its previous hex.
Only the most recent move is retained for this purpose. Once the undo is performed, there is no further move history available through this command.
Ending a Turn
Press T or choose End Turn. An End Turn confirmation asks “End the current turn?”; click End Turn to proceed or Cancel to back out. Ending the turn clears every ship's movement points for the new turn.
Ending a turn is a multiplayer operation; in Demo mode the application tells you to join a room first.
Room Settings and Begin Combat
Click Room Settings in the palette (shown when you are in a room) to open the room's combat settings.
- During combat the ruleset is fixed. Warp speed can still be changed with Apply Warp Speed; a Bridge page that is already open keeps the old warp speed until it is reopened from the ship's Control Panel.
- Start New Combat... lets the administrator choose a new ruleset and warp speed for a new scenario. Bridge treats it as a new battle and starts fresh sessions; the starting roster is taken again from the ships on the map.
- Clearing the battlefield also ends the scenario; the next scenario needs its own Begin Combat.
- Players see the settings as read-only text, and a note saying whether combat has begun.
Control Panel and Bridge
Bridge is a separate application that runs a ship's control panel. After the administrator begins combat, Control Panel... appears in the ship command menu and opens that ship in Bridge. Before combat begins, the Control Panel and Console Panel entries are hidden for everyone.
Who Sees Which Entry
- Basic, Advanced and Graduate: the ship's owner gets Control Panel. The administrator gets Control Panel on any ship while Admin Sees All is on. There is no Console Panel.
- Command & Control, Admin Sees All on: the administrator gets Control Panel on any ship and no Console Panel. Players get both Control Panel and Console Panel on ships they own.
- Command & Control, Admin Sees All off: everyone, the administrator included, gets Console Panel only, on ships they own.
When the administrator opens a Control Panel on a ship someone else owns, the menu entry reads Control Panel (Side X, Owner)... as a reminder.
Bridge Already Open
Each click on Control Panel starts a new Bridge session for the ship and ends the previous one. If the administrator and the ship's owner have each opened the ship, a Bridge Already Open box warns you before you replace the other person's session, and says who opened it and about how long ago. Click Open Anyway to continue, or Cancel (or ✕) to leave things as they are. Reopening a ship you opened yourself never shows the warning.
The VTT cannot tell that a Bridge tab has been closed, so the warning can appear for a session no one is using.
The link the VTT gives Bridge works only once and only for about a minute, so use Control Panel each time you want to open Bridge rather than saving or sharing the address. A Bridge page left over from a scenario that has ended shows “This scenario has ended.”
Saving a Battle
Press Ctrl+S or choose Save Battle. The current room battlefield is exported as a local JSON file named battle.json. Depending on your browser's download settings, it either goes straight to your Downloads folder or asks where to save it.
Saving does not modify the shared battlefield and is available to every participant. You must be in a multiplayer room to save a battle.
A saved battle remembers each ship's owner by name, its side and visibility, the room's ruleset and warp speed, and whether combat had begun.
Loading a Battle
Press Ctrl+O or choose Load Battle, then select a JSON battle file.
Loading replaces the whole battlefield. Each ship goes back to its saved owner by name; an owner who has not yet joined the room gets the ship back when they join. A player's side comes from the Participants list, so make sure each returning player is assigned the side you expect.
If the saved battle had begun combat, loading it starts a new scenario for Bridge; an old Bridge session cannot be continued from a save.
Rooms and Multiplayer
Choose Join Room to open the room dialog. Enter a Room Number, Display Name, and Room Password, then choose Join. Leave the Administrator Password blank unless you are the room's administrator.
Creating a New Room
Check Create New Room. The dialog changes to Create Room and asks for an Administrator Password. Enter the room information and create the room; the application then joins it using the supplied display name and room password.
After a successful join, the room number is displayed in the Room area, Participants becomes available, and the administrator receives the room-lock control.
Who Is the Administrator?
Nobody becomes administrator by joining first or by choosing a particular name. The administrator is the person who created the room, or anyone who supplies the room's administrator password when joining. If the administrator leaves and nobody reclaims the role, the room has no administrator and the administrator-only functions are unavailable until someone joins with the administrator password.
Locking the Room
The administrator can check Lock Room. While a room is locked, a new player who knows the room password must still be admitted: the administrator sees an Admission Request box naming the player and chooses Yes, No or Ignore. The administrator password, and a player returning to the room, bypass the lock.
Refreshing, Disconnecting and Rejoining
If you refresh the page or your connection drops, the VTT rejoins you automatically when it can. You keep your side and your ships, and the administrator keeps the role. If the connection cannot be restored, you are returned to Demo mode and the Join Room dialog opens with an explanation; join again with the same display name to recover your ships and side.
A display name already in use by someone else in the room cannot be joined.
Leaving a Room: Demo Mode
When you leave a room because you were removed, the connection was lost or a rejoin failed, you return to Demo mode: the room name shows Demo, the starting demo ships and planet reappear on the map, and the room's ships are gone from your screen. Demo mode is a private sandbox; nothing you do there affects any room. Join Room takes you back into a room.
Participants
Choose Participants to display the current room's participants. The table shows Name, Side, Role, and Status. The administrator appears first in the list.
- Each player's Side is a drop-down. Choosing a side assigns the player to it and moves the player's ships to it. “Unassigned” is offered only to players who have never been given a side.
- A Kick button appears at the end of every row except your own. Click it and confirm in the Remove Participant box to remove that player from the room. The removed player sees a “Removed from Room” notice and returns to Demo mode, and may join again.
Other players see the sides as plain numbers and have no Kick buttons.
Chat
Press H, or choose Chat, to open the chat panel. Unlike the other dialogs, it is meant to stay open while you play; close it with its ✕ button when you're done with it.
A message can be sent to any combination of sides and individually named players, independent of team alliance. Allied players are not required to share a side — for example, allied Orion and Romulan players may keep separate sides so that Romulan cloaking status is visible only to other Romulan players, even while the two sides fight together. Note also that allies with different sides won't be able to see allied ships hidden behind obstacles such as planets.
Opening the panel with nothing selected defaults to your own current side. Check or uncheck any combination of sides and players before sending.
Every message shows who sent it and exactly who it was sent to (for example, "to: Side 2, Bob"), visible to everyone who received it.
If a message arrives while the chat panel is closed, the panel opens automatically so it isn't missed.
Administrator Functions
The administrator is the participant who created the room or who joined with the room's administrator password (see Rooms and Multiplayer).
- Room Settings and Begin Combat, including warp speed changes and Start New Combat.
- End Turn is administrator-only.
- Load Battle is administrator-only.
- Clear Battlefield is administrator-only.
- Lock Room is administrator-only, and the administrator answers admission requests.
- The administrator sets each player's side and can remove players in the Participants dialog.
- The administrator can use the command menu of, and edit, any ship, including Transfer Control to hand a ship to another player.
- Only the administrator may place obstacles.
Admin Sees All
The administrator has an Admin Sees All checkbox, on by default. When it is on, the administrator sees every ship on the map regardless of cloaking or obstacles. The setting applies to the whole room, and in the Command & Control ruleset it also determines which Control Panel and Console Panel entries the administrator and the players are offered.
On-Screen Controls
Hold O to display the application's built-in Controls overlay. Release O to hide it.
The current overlay lists the principal keyboard and mouse controls, including rotation, visibility, firing arcs, deletion, placement cancellation, zoom, pan, and targeting.
Combat-Side Display
Hold C to display the combat-side overlay. Release C to hide it.
Clearing the Battlefield
Press B or choose Clear Battlefield. A Clear Battlefield confirmation asks “Clear the entire battlefield?”; click Clear to remove every ship and object for everyone in the room, or Cancel to keep them.
Clearing the battlefield also ends the current scenario: Bridge pages for it stop working, and the administrator must begin combat again (Room Settings and Begin Combat) before the next scenario's Control Panels are available.
Deleting a Ship
Select a ship and press Delete, or choose Delete... from its contextual command menu. A Delete Ship box asks you to confirm, naming the ship the same way the yellow Selected Ship line does (its number and name, or its number and model if it has no name); click Delete to remove the ship or Cancel to keep it.
In a room, only the ship's owner or the administrator can delete it. A deleted ship is also removed from the starting roster Bridge is waiting for.
Dialog Boxes
The VTT shows its own message, confirmation and text-entry boxes in the middle of the screen, above anything else that is open, instead of the browser's pop-up boxes.
- Notice — a message with an OK button.
- Confirmation — a question with a button named for the action (Delete, Clear, End Turn, Remove) and a Cancel button.
- Text entry — used by Rename Ship and Set Move Pts; the box starts out filled with the current value. Press Enter to accept.
✕, Cancel and Esc all cancel. While one of these boxes is open, the keyboard shortcuts are switched off, so typing in the box can never trigger a command.
Canceling Placement or Closing Dialogs
Press Esc to cancel the current placement operation. Esc also closes an open ship command menu, Join Room dialog, Participants dialog, Visibility dialog, or Admission Request dialog, depending on which is currently open, and cancels any of the message, confirmation and text-entry dialog boxes. The other dialogs close with their Cancel or ✕ buttons.
Current Build Notes
This guide is intentionally limited to behavior supported by the current application source. It does not describe combat-resolution rules or ship-system rules that are not implemented in the supplied client interface. A separate application called Bridge manages ship master control panels for all four rule sets; the Control Panel entry in the ship menu opens it. Ship station controls (the Console Panel) for the Command and Control rule set are still under development.
Planned Enhancements
- Make the red targeting line a genuinely shared room-level resource so that all players see the same line;
- Convert the method for ship movement from select-click to click-and-drag;
- Full integration with the Bridge application, including the per-station Console Panel.